Electricity rate relief on hold
for current legislative session

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT)

Published
1:00 am EDT, Sunday, April 16, 2006

Electricity rate relief will not likely be coming out of Hartford this session.

As the legislature meanders to the finish line on May 3,
House Democrats
turned out the lights on a Republican-backed proposal to reduce the gross receipts tax on electric bills from 6.8 percent to 4 percent for households. For businesses, the rates could be cut from 8.5 percent to 5 percent, under the proposal.

The House voted 90-52 to table the proposal, effectively killing the plan, which has plenty of
House Republicans
wired up.

"Electric consumers could have saved around $60 million annually if this amendment passed," Scribner said. "Instead, legislative Democrats weren't interested in even discussing it."

House Minority Leader
Robert Ward
, R-North Branford, pledged to bring the proposal up again before the session winds down.

Connecticut Light Power hiked rates by 22 percent late last year. The year before that, electric rates increased by 10 percent.

Traveling abroad

Holy dangerous country!

Locations deemed holy by some are also locations deemed very dangerous by some insurance companies.

This led some insurance companies to withhold life insurance policies to anyone who travels to Israel, anywhere in the Middle East or Pakistan.

Well, not any more.

During holy week, the state House gave unanimous approval to a bill that prohibits an insurance company from not granting a policy based on a person's lawful travel.

Since three world religions hold the Middle East in high regard, this could affect a decent number of people. Though, not everyone feels compelled by their faith to travel there.

The industry used the U.S. State Department's lists of dangerous countries as a basis for denying some people insurance.

The bill, which passed the Senate unanimously on April 5, includes a compromise that would allow life insurers to deny an application or charge a different premium or rate if it believes people will put themselves in danger.

Now it goes to Gov. M. Jodi Rell.

The insurance industry did not lobby heavily against the bill, which could be why it passed unanimously.